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Crafting a plan to tackle poverty from the ground up

As Toronto prepares to launch its first anti-poverty plan, low-income residents weigh in with their priorities.

Toronto is crafting a municipal plan to tackle poverty in the city. People who have have experienced it first hand are making sure their voices are heard with a report to be delivered to Deputy Mayor Pam McConnell on Tuesday. (MARCUS OLENIUK / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

South Etobicoke Youth Assembly members Janice Karmody, 20, front left, and peer mentor Jeff Gerjol, 16, right, are shown with some of the young people who participate in their program at Humber Community Gym. From left, back row, Justice Griffiths Gold, 16, Shantaya James, 20, Trevon Arnold, 19 and Hasan James, 15. The group had lobbied for years for access to more recreational space. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Toronto has the highest rate of child poverty, more working poor and the largest inequality gap of any city in the country.

It is a recipe for urban decay and social unrest that anti-poverty activists say the city can no longer ignore.

As city staff prepare the framework for Toronto’s first municipal poverty reduction strategy, low-income residents are weighing in with their ideas.

“Poverty is a significant challenge and minor tinkering will do little to effectively address it,” they say in their report, being released Tuesday at city hall.

Written by Commitment 2 Community, a coalition of social agencies, advocates and community leaders, the report captures the views of hundreds of residents living in poverty who attended dozens of meetings on the issue over the past six months.

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They hope their recommendations on jobs, food security, public transit, housing and municipal services will be reflected in the city’s framework, being unveiled later this month.

Above all, the report makes a plea for systemic change.

“It’s important to hear their stories and to see how everything is connected,” says Regini David, a community legal worker who advocates for struggling singles, families and seniors in Scarborough.

“It’s not just the temporary, low-wage jobs. It’s the lack of good transit to get there and the high cost of tickets,” she says.

Many of the residents she works with rent rooms in area apartments and homes because they can’t afford anything else. But since rooming houses are illegal in Scarborough, tenants are afraid to complain about unsanitary or unsafe conditions, David adds.

Suburban sprawl makes it difficult to shop for nutritious food. Time-based TTC transfers would allow riders to make several stops on the same ticket, she says.

If the municipality is serious about tackling poverty, it has to start with its own employment practices, says Tim McGuire, head of Local 79, which represents about 20,000 city workers.

Hundreds of seasonal city recreation workers are required to be available for work during the summer months, but don’t get paid when the weather is bad, he says.

“These are our neighbour’s kids who use those funds to go to college and university,” McGuire says.

While some workers prefer part-time hours, the city should aim to increase full-time positions and ensure that part-timers are guaranteed a minimum of 18 hours a week, says library worker Ada Jaworska. She has been shelving books at the library on a permanent part-time basis for nine years and still hasn’t been able to secure a full-time position.

Many city-funded services, such as daycare and parenting centres, are housed in local public schools. And yet too many schools and other public buildings are closed at 4 p.m. and on the weekends or are too expensive for broader community use, the report says. Better use of these public spaces would be a boon to disadvantaged groups, like low-income youth, the report says.

Training front-line city workers to better understand the challenges faced by vulnerable residents, including those without official status in Canada, would help make the city more welcoming and supportive, the report adds. As a Sanctuary City, all Toronto programs are open to undocumented residents.

“Invariably, people are going to ask where is the money going to come from?” says Winston Tinglin of Social Planning Toronto, a community-based research, education and advocacy group and founding member of Commitment 2 Community.

“But it is costing us money already. And it’s going to cost us more in community health and urban decay down the road if we don’t act,” he says. “This is an investment in the future. An investment in prosperity. An investment in people.”

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